Sammy J - Skinny Man, Modern World

Sammy J is one of the leading stars of a new wave of Australia-based Australian comics (as opposed to the likes of Brendon Burns and Tim Minchin who are now based in London) who are getting wide-spread acclaim.  Others include his often partner-in-crime Heath McIvor (a wonderfully thoughtful and generous gentleman!), the previously covered Celia Pacquola, Lawrence Leung.  Could this be the result of many years of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival searching out the best home grown talent and helping foster a great environment over there?  Possibly, but they also grew up with some great talents on their TV including one of my all-time favourites Shaun Micallef.
But this review is just about Sammy J and I have to start it by summarising a conversation I was very lucky enough to have with the show's star the next night.  The whole content of this show is true.  You will find it hard to believe but I have it from the source that everything (well, with one obvious exception) is real.  With this in mind Sammy takes us along on a musical and stand-up journey from his teenage years, to his future death, back to falling in love, being a performer in Adelaide and previous years in Edinburgh.  Breaking out from two years of character driven story telling Sammy performs with a confidence and smoothness that acknowledges his physical limitations ("Sammy ain't a fighter") whilst looking very sharp in his trendy suit.  The hour flies by as Sammy effortlessly delivers his well-paced disparate sets.  Thoroughly enjoyable, light-hearted relief from a real talent doing his third different style of show in as many years.  8 out of 10, aka 4 stars and a certain re-booking for next year (which rumours have it means Ricketts Lane comes to the UK!).

Celia Pacquola - Flying Solos

Last year Celia's debut Edinburgh show went down very well with me and many other reviews / critics / people-with-an-inflated-opinion-of-their-own-importance.  She is a very friendly Ozzie, quite positive and a good communicator.  So in the same outfit as last year she greets her sold-out audience for her new show in the same venue.  This year Celia focuses on doing things on your own, encompassing intentional feats and embarrassing moments.  Her warmth really sets the audience at ease even as she tries to get them to cheer if they've made similar mortifying mistakes.  Normally this type of audience interaction dies quite painfully and you see a drop in the performers tone or effort but not so with Celia.  Her unending positivity rides over the awkwardness and brings the audience with her along a journey of trying to achieve something impossible on her own, namely playing the piano solo from "I'm So Excited".
Along the way we have insights back into Celia's shameful childhood and the relationship she has with her mother.  It's not all personal discover as there are some very good jokes and concepts in there, especially a cleaning joke that seemed to not get the credit or time it deserved (but that might be a cultural thing).  Her merging between video, props and music is very smooth and seamless, just like her lights & clicking trick from last year.  The show builds to a climax for Celia to genuinely stand up on her own two feet, even beyond the scope of the stage, and achieve something that seemed totally impossible at the beginning of the show.  The audience really loved it and left elated and feeling so positive, in fact I defy anyone to leave the show not feeling uplifted (cue inevitable comparisons with Adam Hills and quite rightly so).  A thoroughly enjoyable hour from such a likeable person, 8 out of 10, aka 4 stars and I will be back to see Celia again next year!

Sophie Black - A Sketch Show

So the re-arranged first show this year is a woman (just like last year).  Let's hope she does better than the damp start to last year...  Sophie Black comes out to 3/4 full room (50-ish capacity) with a bizarre permed wig on in character as a street sketch artist.  Yes, opening a sketch show with a sketch about sketching is mildly interesting on paper, but that's the only thing that's actually vaguely amusing throughout the long hour in the Attic.
She performs her characters with relative proficiency and wraps up the last 15 mins with callbacks and closure to earlier stories but by this point the audience just didn't seem to care.  It took 10 mins for me to start looking at my watch and wondering why I had gone to see another humourless show like Nick Mohammed, whilst someone left after the second scene (about 20 minutes in, which is about the same time I stayed for Nick Mohammed's show two years ago).  Was there anything of any note in her show?  Sadly not.  If you are interested in seeing someone do an average job of pretending to be characters that are slightly exaggerated and follow stories peppered with silly statements in lieu of jokes, then I'm sure you can pick from many others in the same category as Sophie.  6 out of 10, aka 2 stars, which is sadly the same disappointing start to this year's Fringe as last year!

And So The 64th Edinburgh Fringe 2010 Starts!

Yes I'm a little bit late to the game this year but that was a once in a lifetime situation.  I've had to give away 10 tickets for the opening few days which is just insane, so let's crack on quickly.  Who will I meet this year, who will I discover as a new favourite and who will fall off the list?  Don't forget the fully explanation of my ranking system out of 10 and the simplified version of 5 stars.  See you in town...

My Resevoir Dogs Routine Is Over...

Where normally I would want to be Mr Pink, today I was Mr. Blue :-(

Two Ways To Root A Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro

Just like buses...  Firstly, a group of very generous people have got together to buy an expert German coder an X10 Mini Pro and within a day and a half we have a rooting method based on an OTA procedure.  This will allow you to install custom ROMs at a later date, as well as removing the un-wanted apps installed by Sony Ericsson.  For more details on Bin4ry's method take a look at XDA Developers.
The second method was actually posted before Bin4ry rooted the phone and works off a security exploit by (I believe) a Czech guru called nadlabak.  His rooting system is a bit easier as it works on all versions but can easily be fixed in the next software update so I'm using it until Bin4ry's version works for my firmware.  His exploit (referred to as Exploid) can be seen on his website.
Bye bye RoadSync, RollerCoaster, Peggle, Notes and TimeScape (although rather than removing the last two I renamed the apps from *.apk to *.bak just in case...)!

Shouldn't Today Be The Longest Day Of The Year?

I think the European Parliament should re-align the calendar (created in Europe) so that today be the longest day of the year. 24/7 makes far more sense than 21/6 (or 22, whatever it is). True it wouldn't make sense to to Americans with their messed up date system but tough. of course it would work either for Asia and their superior International date format and the ISO standard but you can't please everyone...
On a slightly related note I love the gag from Two and a Half Men when Jake comments that his mother and her husband are arguing 31. Explaining that he looked perplexed and said "31. Y'know, 24 and 7... Geez and you say that I need to work harder at math'.

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Mark Kermode Offers Insights to Inception's Inspiration

Firstly, Inception is a very good film.  As I'm not a huge fan of The Dark Knight (it's a decent film but a bit spoilt by weak acting from Bale and a needless 30 min extra bit tacked on about Two Face) it really shows what Christopher Nolan can do when given full creative control (I assume with Batman the studio interfered / put restrictions on him to some degree) and more importantly, works with good actors (Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are great talents, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy put in very good performances).  So what's not to like?  Well it seems the publicity machine is claiming it's the first time a film has been set almost entirely in someone's dream, and quite rightly Mark Kermode takes them to task on that:

I Am Not A Follower of Fashion, I Am A Free Man!

I will not be pushed into a shop, measured, briefed, debriefed or given a changing room number.  My life is my own.  I set trends.
Unlike Markies...  I guess they've been looking at last year's Hallowe'en pictures...

The Best Licence Plate In Years? AE 10 YOU

According to the DVLA this plate has already been taken, meaning there is someone out there who thinks faster than I do (technically I though of it after the 10 plates have finished!).  For the paltry sum of £399 (or maybe £799) they have one of the coolest licence plates available in decades, A E I O U.  Kudos Sir, or Madam.